As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. An option is an Information Handling System (IHS). An IHS generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements may vary between different applications, IHSs may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in IHSs allow for IHSs to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, global communications, etc. In addition, IHSs may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
A wide variety of software applications may be installed on an IHS, such as a personal computer. These software applications include both user-level software applications and lower-level software applications that are responsible for various aspects of the IHS's capabilities. These software applications may be regarded as collections of files of various types. For instance, a software application may consists of program code files that are used to implement the functionality of the software application. In addition, each software application may utilize a variety of resource files that are used to store information such as settings that are used by the application. Various output files may be generated as a result of the user's operation of the software application. Certain applications may require the use of files such as drivers used for interfacing with the hardware of the IHS. In addition to files that are associated with individual software applications, an IHS may utilize various types of general resource files, such as registry settings, encryption keys and security certificates.
In addition to the various types of software application files, these software applications may be used to generate and edit many different types of files. For instance, a word processing application may be used to create various types of documents. A CAD (computer assisted design) program may be used over the course of days, weeks or even years to create various types of engineering drawings. Some of these user created files may represent a large investment of time by the user. For instance, a spreadsheet program may be used to maintain records for ongoing projects that can span over numerous years. Such files may be literally irreplaceable, but may nonetheless be vulnerable to loss due to the use of inadequate backup procedures.
The wide assortment of files that may be stored by an IHS significantly complicates the ability for a user to implement efficient data backup procedures. Backup procedures that create a backup copy of every file on a device requires large amounts of storage space and results in many files being needlessly backed up. More selective back up procedures require the identification of the files, file extensions and/or directories to be backed up. For instance, configuration of a backup protocol may require a user to identify all directories on an IHS to be backed up to a remote location. This can result in a complex and error-prone task that requires a user to understand the directories and files used by each software application. This task can be complicated by the use of non-standard installation settings, the use of uncommon file extensions and the use of non-standard hardware, such as an additional storage drive, used by an IHS. This task is complicated further with respect to low-level software applications that operate without the user's knowledge. Complicating the problem still further for the user is the proliferation of different devices that are relied upon by the user.
The degree of difficulty in implementing effective backup procedures in such complex environments results in many users forgoing the use of software backups altogether. In some scenarios, a user may be able to implement an effective backup procedure for certain types of files that are deemed of particular importance, such as financial records or music files, but such methods leave much of the user's data unprotected from loss. However, even such users that are able to implement partial backup processes often fail to adequately protect data that is difficult and/or costly to replace. In such situations, users may not realize these backup procedures are being used to back up easily replaceable files, while irreplaceable files are left unprotected. If a user is paying for backup software or a backup service to implement these backup procedures, the user's backup resources could be better spent.